The Ban Heng Bookshop

Excerpts taken from: The Straits Times (Singapore)

October 14, 2007 Sunday

By: Cheong Suk-Wai

LAST Monday brought the clop-clop of the neighbourhood postman's boots to my doorstep. It was all I could do to keep myself from squealing. Boy-o-boy, my lost memories were here! Scissors in hand seconds later, I stabbed at the tape-plastered parcel, postmarked Putney, in Greater London. The cardboard came away to reveal seven beautifully wrapped British schoolgirls' comics, each published between 25 and 30 years ago. Good old Rob, I thought, quietly blessing my reliable online comics seller who preserved them so well, they were almost as new as when they hit newsstands yonks ago. They were all issues of Jinty, a weekly British comic with serialised illustrated stories for kids between seven and 17, and which ran from 1975 till 1982. Orson Welles had his sleigh Rosebud. Me, I had Jinty. For some time now, whenever I have cash to spare, I have been reclaiming my childhood by hunting down the copies which I don't already have, as well as its RM12 annuals which my parents could ill afford to buy me when I was growing up. I was introduced to the comic when my family moved from Kuala Lumpur to Muar, Johor in the mid-1970s, and my already comics-mad father struck up a friendship with the comics-mad owner of Muar's main bookshop, Ban Heng. Happiness was tagging along with my Dad whenever he popped into Ban Heng for a chat with its kindly Peranakan owner, a heavy-set man with big owl glasses who went about in a singlet and brown bermudas, which he wore midriff-high. I would flip through the four stacks of assorted British comics placed right upfront, no doubt to entice tykes and marvel at the artistry and enthralling storylines, especially within Jinty's popular pages. But, somehow, we always ended up going home only with copies of the more classic Dandy and Beano, which were my Mum's firm favourites. Then, one evening in 1977, my father came home with not one but two issues of Jinty. Hurrah! He had decided to subscribe to it regularly, at RM1 a copy in an age when 30 cents got you a big plate of nasi lemak. From then on, I had the most wondrous world to retreat to every Thursday, with Jinty the storytelling genie opening my mind .......